Elon Musk and Grimes' newborn son cannot be named X Æ A-12, name is legal but 'won't be accepted'

According to People, who spoke with family law attorney David Glass, the baby's name isn't technically illegal, however it won't be accepted as valid by the state of California.

"In California, you can only use the '26 characters' of the English language in your baby name," Glass explained. "Thus, you can't have numbers, Roman numerals, accents, umlauts or other symbols or emojis. Although an apostrophe, for a name like 'O'Connor,' is acceptable."

Glass also noted that if the parents filled out X Æ A-12's birth certificate at the hospital "with the odd numbers, dashes and symbols, it will be submitted and then rejected and they'll be asked to submit it again."

"They have an opportunity to appeal the rejection of the birth certificate application but it's unlikely that it will be granted because, again, California... Has been struggling with using symbols," he added. "They tried to change the [rule] back in 2014 to allow certain characters, accents or umlauts — those sorts of things — and the bill got dropped because [of the cost] to upgrade their computer systems to allow these accents.

"I don't think you can say it's illegal — it just won't be accepted," Glass added. "So your child won't have an official name and won't have a birth certificate and you can't get a social security number until you have a birth certificate and on down the line."

'Oblivion' singer Grimes confirmed the birth of her son on Tuesday (US time) after Musk announced the news the day before. She confirmed the name was X Æ A-12 in a Twitter post, referencing the meaning behind it.

Still, no one is sure exactly how the name is pronounced, but fans have taken to Twitter with their own theories, with the most popular being interpreted as X Ash Archangel.

The baby is Grimes' first child and Musk's sixth. He has five sons from his previous marriage to author Justine Wilson — twins Xavier and Griffin, and triplets Damian, Saxon and Kai. His first son, Nevada, passed away of SIDS at 10 weeks old in 2002.

Musk and Grimes began dating in 2018. She announced her pregnancy on social media in January.